Job 4:13

"Did not he make me hear beautiful accents? He announces here that his words are inspired from above.

ON HOW HERETICS MISUSE THIS VERSE. In the horror of a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men. It often happens, that while heretics are bent to discourse of things above them, they become their own witnesses against themselves, that what they deliver is not true. For in a vision of the night the sight is uncertain. Therefore they declare that they received 'the inklings of whispers' in 'the terror of a vision of the night,' for, that the things, which they teach, may be made to appear sublime to others, they declare that they themselves can scarcely comprehend them. But it may be inferred from hence how far that can be rendered certain to their hearers, which they themselves beheld but dubiously. And so is it marvellously ordered, that while they run on speaking of sublime things, in the exposure of folly, they are entangled in the very words of their sublimity. Now to what height they rear themselves for singularity of wisdom, is shewn, when he adds in the same breath, when deep sleep falleth upon men. As if it were openly said by heretics, 'When men are asleep beneath, we wake to receive heavenly truths, in that to us all that is known, to the knowledge whereof the dull hearts of men cannot arise.' As if they said in plain words, 'In things, wherein our understanding rises erect, the faculties of the rest of the world lie asleep.' But sometimes, when they see that this is disregarded by the hearer, they feign that they are themselves in fear of what they say.

In the horror of a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men. The horror of a vision of the night is the shuddering of secret contemplation. For the higher the elevation, whereat the mind of man contemplates the things that are eternal, so much the more, terror-struck at her temporal deeds, she shrinks with dread, in that she thoroughly discovers herself guilty, in proportion as she sees herself to have been out of harmony with that light, which shines in the midst of darkness above her, and then it happens that the mind being enlightened entertains the greater fear, as it more clearly sees by how much it is at variance with the rule of truth. And she, that before seemed as it were more secure in seeing nothing, trembles with sore affright from her very own proficiency itself. Though, whatever her progress in virtue, she does not as yet compass any clear insight into eternity, but still sees with the indistinctness of a certain shadowy imagining. And hence this same is called a vision of the night. For as we have also said above, in the night we see doubtfully, but in the day we see steadily. Therefore because, as regards the contemplating the ray of the interior Sun, the cloud of our corruption interposes itself, nor does the unchangeable Light burst forth such as It is to the weak eyes of our mind, we as it were still behold God 'in a vision of the night,' since most surely we go darkling under a doubtful sight. Yet though the mind may have conceived but a distant idea concerning Him, yet in contemplation of His Greatness, she recoils with dread, and is filled with a greater awe, in that she feels herself unequal even to the very skirts of the view of Him. And falling back upon herself, she is drawn to Him with closer bonds of love, Whose marvellous sweetness, being unable to bear, she has but just tasted of under an indistinct vision. But, because she never attains to such an height of elevation, unless the importunate and clamorous throng of carnal desires be first brought under governance, it is rightly added, When deep sleep falleth upon men. Whoever is bent to do the things which are of the world, is, as it were, awake, but he, that seeking inward rest eschews the riot of this world, sleeps as it were. But first we must know that, in holy Scripture, sleep, when put figuratively, is understood in three senses. For sometimes we have expressed…